Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - North America

Google Real Estate

2009-07-07T13:26:37Z

Google has entered the real estate listings business by allowing users to find property listings on Google Maps. Searchers are still offered the usual business listings but are now also offered the option to see property listings as well. The listings include some basic filtering and the ability to save and share the results.

What will be the impact of this change on the Real Estate category? It's hard to say but the following data and analysis offers some clues.

Hitwise data reveal that last week, Google Maps sent 2% of its US traffic to websites in the Real Estate industry, making it the #19 downstream industry (among more than 160). Yahoo! Real Estate, Realtor.com and Trulia all accounted for a larger volume of traffic to real estate listings than did Google Maps.

A Google product manager told The Age that real estate queries are increasing on Google. Hitwise data indicate that the share of visits Real Estate websites receive from Google Maps has increased 68% year over year to June 2009. But Google Maps is tiny compared to the 100 pound gorilla, Google.com. Google.com accounted for 24%, or nearly one in four visits to Real Estate websites in June, up 18% year over year in June.

The real question for Real Estate websites is whether (and when) property listings will be included in the search engine results page on Google.com.

Hitwise US: Top 10 Real Estate Websites, Week to July 4, 2009

Gambling - Opening the Search Engine Spigot

2009-06-30T13:09:09Z

It looks as though Congress may soon be voting on the Payments System Protection Act, which partially decriminalizes online gaming. The Act could have massive implications for online gaming and revenues for search engines, as it would allow search engines to sell sponsored listings to gambling companies.

Looking at Hitwise data, I was surprised to see that Gambling websites are already getting a large chunk of their traffic from search engines and some even from paid search listings.

Casino and Poker websites receive a larger share of their traffic from Search Engines than average. In May, Gambling websites received 27.24% of US Internet visits from Search Engines. Hitwise organizes the Gambling parent category into seven sub-categories. I'll focus on Casinos and Poker in this post, leaving aside Bingo, Sports Betting, Lotteries, Directories and Games for the moment. Casinos and Poker websites received 32.19% and 35.62% of visits from Search Engines respectively. This is above the average for All Categories of websites at 26.247%.

Of that search traffic, Casinos received 87.82% of their search traffic from organic listings in the four weeks to June 20th, 2009 and Poker websites 95.22%. To give you a benchmark, the average for All Categories was 92.63% organic and for Shopping & Classifieds 82.56%. Most of the paid traffic terms sending visits to Casino websites were searches for casino resorts, such as Foxwoods and Atlantis. This leaves huge opportunities for search engines to monetize all of that search traffic I mentioned earlier going to gambling websites.

Looking at the search terms sending visits to Gambling websites, one immediately notices the dominance of branded search terms. The top generic, or non-branded query, is "internet casinos" at #110 among search terms sending visits to Gambling websites in the week to 20th June. Next is "free sports picks" at #135, "free casino chip" at #231, "free bingo" at #238 and "free online slots no download" at #246.

In the UK in October, Google lifted a self-imposed ban on gambling related advertising in the UK. This offers an interesting opportunity for cross-market comparison. Comparing paid search traffic to Casinos and Poker websites year over year (i.e. since Google lifted its ban) we find a fairly marked increase in paid traffic. Casinos receive 20% of their search traffic from paid listings in the UK, up more than two-fold year over year. Poker websites receive 8% of their UK search traffic from paid listings, up more than three-fold year over year.

It will be interesting to see if the search engines decide to allow paid listings on gambling content if the Act passes. It will also be interesting to see how marketers respond in the US and whether we'll see intense competition on paid listings for branded terms. This could certainly help boost revenues for the search engines during a downturn.

Michael Jackson, Twitter and Misspellings

2009-06-29T23:05:37Z

It has been widely reported that Michael Jackson's untimely death caused a flurry of online activity last week, downing Twitter, Wikipedia and TMZ and even causing problems for Google News. Searches for "michael jackson" ranked 7th among all search terms last week, accounting for one in every 500 US Internet searches.

The top websites receiving traffic from searches for "michael jackson" were Wikipedia, Google News and Michael Jackson's own website. Taking a category level view, we see that News and Media sites were the biggest recipients of traffic at 18%, followed by Entertainment at 13%, Social Networks at 7% and Music at 6%.

The subject dominated conversations on Twitter, driving that site's traffic to reach a new daily high with share of US Internet visits to Twitter.com reaching 0.24% of all US Internet visits, equivalent to 1 in every 417 US Internet visits (see chart below). Note that we are measuring web visits only, so this excludes mobile access and desktop applications. My colleague across the pond similarly reported that UK visits to Twitter reached an all time high last week.

Charles Arthur of guardian.co.uk asks an interesting question - "which messaging service did you hear about Michael Jackson's death on? (Facebook, Twitter, Twitscoop...)" And contrast this to how you heard about Princess Diana's death or that the Twin Towers had been hit by airplanes. A good follow up might be, where did you turn after hearing about his death and how has that changed?

On a separate note, Hitwise search data reveals what every Michael already knows. People don't know how to spell "michael". The #3 search term that included the word "jackson" last week was "micheal jackson".

What Canadians are Searching for Online

2009-06-09T13:06:07Z

Last week, we did a blog post on the top categories visited by Canadian internet users. We followed that up with a post looking at the number of words used in queries. To follow this theme, today we are posting on what Canadians are searching for online.

The following table shows the top search terms entered into search engines by Canadian Internet users in the twelve weeks to 30th May 2009. The table is divided into two columns to show the highest volume navigational search terms (meaning that most searchers had a clear intent to reach a particular website) and the highest volume generic terms.

As we have seen in other markets, the highest volume terms are navigational, indicating that consumers are using search engines to navigate the Internet. For the most part, searchers have a clear idea of where they want to go and use search engines rather than their browser's address bar to find the desired website.

The highest volume generic search term was "games. This is interesting for a few reasons:

The highest volume French language search term was "jeux" (French for "games") meaning that the highest volume French and English language search term was the same.

This is quite different from what we see from Americans. While the search term "games" ranks #18 among search terms sending visits to All Categories in Canada, it ranks #92 in the US.

Interest in online games is not limited to that single term. Eight of the top 100 search terms in Canada were for games or gaming websites. Four games related terms appear in the above list of the top generic search terms.

Another interesting thing we noticed with this analysis is that 13 of the top 100 search terms are generic, compared to only 9 in the US. We did the analysis in Canada looking further down the list. The ratio of generic terms actually increases to 31 of the top 200 terms This could indicate a couple of things. It could point to lower brand loyalty among Canadians online. It could also indicate that in some categories brand loyalties have yet to develop.

We also grouped search terms by topic and found that after social networks, retail and banking were the most popular groupings. Among the top 100 search terms, 16 were for social networks, 14 for retail websites and 9 for banking. Among the 14 retail websites most were for second hand marketplaces, namely Kijiji, Craigslist, eBay and Lespac. Canadian Tire, Walmart and Home Depot also made the top 100 search terms.

We welcome ideas and suggestions for other topics you'd like to see covered in these posts. Feel free to use the comments section to send ideas.

One and Two Word Queries Dominate Canadian Internet Searches

2009-06-08T14:07:13Z

More than half of Canadian search terms contain only one or two words. In the twelve weeks to 30th May 2009, 51.56% of Canadian search terms contained one or two words.

Hitwise recently launched Hitwise Canada and as a follow up to my blog post last week on the industries Canadians are visiting online (and the dominance of search), I wanted to get a better understanding of how Canadians search. In this first post in a two part series, I'll just look at keyword length across markets. Later this week, I'll publish some analysis on the content of the queries.

The following chart shows the keyword breakdown of search terms sending visits to websites in Canada, the US and the UK.

Notice that Canadians on average use fewer words in their search queries than Americans, but more than Brits.

Delving a bit deeper, we looked at search terms sending visits to a number of categories. Shopping and Classifieds websites broadly mirror the pattern for All Categories while search terms sending visits to Travel and to News and Media websites tend to be slightly longer. By contrast, 41.87% of search terms sending Canadian visits to Banks and Financial Institutions contained one word.

Marketers looking to fine tune search marketing strategies need an in-depth understanding of the search behaviour of consumers. We'll follow up this post in the next few days with an entry on the types of search terms Canadians use to navigate the web. Stay tuned.

Travel Agencies Suffer Rampant Price Comparing

2009-06-03T14:00:40Z

Orbitz and Travelocity have announced that they will follow Expedia in eliminating fees for booking flights over the Internet. A few years ago we noticed that Travel Agencies see one of the highest levels of comparison shopping, measured by clickstream traffic.

Looking at upstream visits to Travel Agencies, we see that 30% come from other Travel Agencies (week to 30 May 2009). Travel Agencies receive more upstream visits from other Travel Agencies than from Search Engines.

To give you a benchmark against which to compare this, consider the Shopping & Classifieds Appliances & Electronics category which received 7% of upstream visits from websites in the same category last week and 35% from Search Engines. Similarly, Insurance websites received 11.38% of upstream visits from other Insurance websites last week compared to 23.08% from Search Engines.

Insurance and Appliances and Electronics are highly competitive categories but we still see a much higher level of competitive traffic moving within the Travel Agencies category.

It is therefore not surprising that Travelocity and Orbitz followed Expedia's lead to cut the booking fee. It is also perhaps unsurprising that Expedia made the move in the first place as consumers are price comparing across not just Travel Agencies but also airline, hotel and car rental websites as well. Last week, 7% of downstream visits from Travel Agencies went to Commercial Airlines websites and 10% went to Destination and Accommodations websites.

Clickstream data can provide excellent insight into the degree to which consumers are comparison shopping in a given category. It can also identify new competitive threats by showing the websites consumers visit before and after your site - where they may be comparing your offers.

Home Improvement and Home Depot Growth by State

2009-05-28T13:12:57Z

Memorial Day weekend is a popular time for home improvement. The Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds - House and Garden industry typically sees a lift in the week leading to the long weekend and this year was no exception. Visits to House and Garden websites were up 5% for the week. Home Depot, the #1 website in the category saw visits rise 13% and Lowes, the #2 site, saw visits rise 8%.

Last week, these two home improvement giants issued earnings reports. There was much talk about California in those reports as Home Depot was seen to have suffered as a result of a high foreclosure rate in California.

Looking at Hitwise demographic data for Home Depot, we see that the top five states making up visits to Home Depot in the past four weeks were Texas, California, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania. The following chart shows the share of visits to www.homedepot.com by state in the most recent four week period compared to the same four week period a year ago. As you can see, the share of the site's visits from California are down 21% while Texas and Florida are each making up a 10% larger share of visits.

This data supports what we saw in the earnings reports - weakness in California hurt Home Depot. California made up 7.35% of visits to Home Depot, compared to only 5.10% to Lowes. So while visits from California were down to both retailers, it didn't have the same effect on Lowes as on Home Depot.

Both Lowes and Home Depot saw strong growth year over year from Texas, Pennsylvania and Florida. Marketers looking for growth areas might be interested in targeting these growth markets, particularly in this bleak retail climate. Also, the same analysis could be done for any sector to find pockets of strength.

How Canadians Spend Their Time Online

2009-05-27T22:02:55Z

We recently launched Hitwise Canada and in my first post using our Canadian data, I wanted to take a high level view of what my fellow Canadians are doing online and how that compares to their US and UK counterparts. The largest category in Canada, based on share of Internet visits is Search Engines. Hitwise categorises websites into over 165 industry categories.Search Engines came out on top, capturing 14.58% of Canadian Internet visits in April, followed by Social Networking and Forums and Entertainment.

The following chart shows the share of visits going to the 15 most popular parent categories.

(NB - I have used parent categories except for Computers and Internet, where I have used the sub-categories Search Engines, Social Networking, Portal Frontpages and Forums and Email Services.)

Search Engines attract a much larger share of visits in Canada than in the US or UK. Search Engines account for a 53% larger share of Canadian internet visits compared to the US and 22% larger than the UK. Social Networks, Entertainment (in particular YouTube) and web based email are also much more popular (as measured by share of Internet visits) in Canada than in the UK and US. Conversely, Adult and Shopping and Classifieds attract a much smaller share of visits in Canada than in either the UK or US.

The following table lists the top 5 categories for each of these markets. Notice that Adult and Shopping and Classifieds don't appear among the top 5 categories in Canada. Adult comes in at #6 and Shopping and Classifieds at #8 based on share of Canadian internet visits in April.

Search Engines Account for One Third of Upstream Visits

Search Engines are the largest category in terms of visits and unsurprisingly are also the largest source of upstream visits to websites in Canada. In April, 33% of visits to All Categories of websites came directly from a search engine. Social Networks and Entertainment websites were the second and third largest sources of traffic, accounting for 11% and 10% of upstream visits respectively.

Paid Search Traffic Share Down 26%

2009-05-13T14:24:47Z

Hitwise data indicate that the share of search traffic coming from paid listings is decreasing at the expense of organic traffic. In the four weeks to May 9, 2009, 7.25% of search engine traffic to All Categories of websites was from paid clicks. This compares to 9.84% in the same four week period in 2008 - representing a 26% decline in the share of paid clicks. This trend is apparent across 16 of the 17 Hitwise parent categories (i.e. Automotive, Food and Beverage, Health and Medical, etc). The only category that didn't see a decline in paid traffic was Education, which received 1.45% of search visits from paid clicks compared to 1.39% last year.

The following chart shows the share of search traffic coming from paid clicks over the past year to All Categories, Retail 500 (a custom category of 500 leading retailers), Insurance and Travel Agencies.

The share of paid clicks to Insurance websites was down 22% for the year, Retail 500 down 20% and Travel Agencies down 25%. The steady and consistent decline across categories indicates that this is not an isolated or seasonal variance.

I looked at the top search terms sending visits to the three categories to compare rates of paid clicks year over year. Consistently, brand name terms (such as "travelocity", "orbitz" and "walmart" saw a sharp decrease year over year in the share of paid clicks. For example, 35.75% of clicks on searches for "orbitz" were on paid listings in the four weeks to May 9, 2009. This compares to 46.56% in the same four week period in 2008. This represents a 23% decrease year over year.

Even more extreme, 0.83% of searches for "home depot" went to a paid listing in the four weeks to May 9, 2009 compared to 39.06% in 2008. Similarly, "usaa" saw 0% of clicks on paid listings in the last four weeks compared to 28.88% in the same period in 2008.

Referrals from search engines continue to climb but the proportion of clicks going to sponsored or paid listings is decreasing. This is no doubt a result of cutbacks in marketing spend due to the recession.

Retailers Turn to Social Media in Face of Downturn

2009-05-06T14:31:08Z

A piece of research published this week by Forrester and Shop.org about the mix of online marketing tactics retailers plan to use this year caught my eye. How does actual consumer behavior compare with how marketers plan to allocate budgets?

The following chart shows the online marketing mix for our Retail 500 Index, a custom category of 500 leading retail websites.

The Forrester/Shop.org research found that retailers plan to scale back on expensive search marketing campaigns while expanding efforts on social media such as blogs and social networks. As the above chart illustrates, social networks account for a relatively small share of traffic to websites in the Retail 500 Index, at 4.9% in April 2009. By contrast, Search Engines accounted for 30.9% of upstream visits, 23.9% of which was paid traffic.

In terms of how things have changed in the past year, the following chart shows the percentage change in upstream visits to Retail 500 websites year over year in April.

As illustrated, the biggest positive change was for Blogs and Personal Websites, a category cited specifically by the Forrester/Shop.org research as a growth area for retailers. The change indicated in the chart is however from a low base. Blogs and Personal Websites accounted for only 0.28% of upstream visits to Retail 500 websites in April 2009.

News and Media accounted for only 1.82% of upstream visits but also showed large gains year over year. This indicates that opportunities exist in more traditional advertising channels as well.

Swine Flu Fears Rising

2009-04-28T13:41:05Z

As the number of swine flu cases continues to climb so does public interest in the outbreak. The search term "swine flu" ranked #133 among the more than 1.5 million unique search terms we captured last week in the US. More than 1 in every 8000 US Internet searches last week was for "swine flu". The following table shows the top 10 searches term variations for the word "flu" last week.

Looking at the table we see that Americans are looking for more information on the outbreak and specifically for symptoms to look out for. Searches for "swine flu" sent internet users to the Centers for Disease Control, and Prevention, Wikipedia and Google News.

The CDC website, which alone received more than one third of visits from searches for "swine flu", saw its share of US internet visits jump 63% last week. Visits to the site were higher than they've been in the past three years. Looking at the DMA of visitors to CDC.gov last week, we see that the largest share was from Internet users in New York, NY, making up 7.64% of visits.Comparing visits to four weeks ago, before the outbreak, we've seen a 13% increase in visits from those in New York, NY. New York was followed by LA, Chicago and Philadelphia in share of visits to CDC.gov.

We are likely to continue to see an increase in Internet visits to CDC.gov over the coming days. On Sunday, we saw an 83% single day incraese in visits to the site.

Oprah Effect on Twitter

2009-04-21T13:50:18Z

Oprah Winfrey, the icon that can turn any book or product into a best seller, posted her first Tweet on Friday on her show. There's been much debate among loyal Twitter users about whether this spells the end for Twitter's coolness, as soccer moms sign up in droves.

So what was the Oprah-Effect on Twitter? The following chart shows daily visits to Twitter from 1st January to 18th April (Oprah's first Tweet was on the 17th).

Share of US Internet visits to Twitter increased 24% on Friday, April 17, the day of Oprah's first Tweet. Comparing visits with the previous Friday, visits were up 43%.

Hitwise clickstream data reveals that on April 17, 37% of visits to Twitter.com were new visitors (as opposed to returning). The service typically has a high ratio of new visitors as it is still very much in a growth phase. However, the percentage of new visitors was 5% higher on Friday than the previous day and the average for March. To give a benchmark, Facebook's ratio of new visitors was 8% in March.

The search term "oprah twitter" was the #35 highest search term with the word "twitter" last week and the #7 with "oprah". Considering that our search data is weekly and that the show only aired on Friday, this is impressive.

Twitter - Google Marriage - what would it mean?

2009-04-08T13:31:57Z

To piggy back on a post my colleague across the pond, Robin Goad, did yesterday, we thought we'd revisit some of the stats to better understand how things would look if Google were to acquire Twitter.

As the chart below illustrates, US Internet visits to Twitter have increased 194% since the start of the year and nearly 7000 times in the last 12 months (March 08-09). Last week (w/e 04/04/09), Twitter was the 69th most visited website in the US, up from 74 the week before, 86 two weeks ago and 105 three weeks ago. It was the 8th most popular social networking site. The website has enjoyed steady and constant growth. Share of US Internet visits to Twitter have increased every week since mid-November 2008.

I should also add the usual caveat: the service is probably even more popular than our numbers imply, as we are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website. If the people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third party applications (such as Twitterrific, Twitterfeed and Tweetdeck) were included, the numbers would be even higher.

But where does Twitter send its traffic to? It may be the 69th most visited website in the US, but Twitter was also the 66th biggest source of traffic to other websites in the US during March. A few weeks ago we posted data showing where US consumers go after visiting Twitter.

Here is an updated version of the chart from my last post. This time I am using March data and I changed the chart type to ease comparison.

As I mentioned in my last post, "it appears that Twitter is being used as a social network and means of distributing content. This is by no means the only way it is being used - just one standout trend. Twitter.com's clickstream profile is much closer to a social network than to Search Engines or Email Services. Twitter's clickstream differs markedly from search engines in that relatively little traffic goes to retail websites and Education (i.e. Wikipedia). It is also different from Email in that less traffic goes to Dating websites and again, to retail and Business and Finance websites."

In other words, Twitter sends far less traffic to industries that are the big spenders on search engine marketing than does Google.

Motorcycles for Sale - Riding out the Recession

2009-04-02T13:18:29Z

It appears that those interested in unloading a motorcycle may be in luck. US Internet searches for "motorcycles for sale" have more than doubled in the past year. As the following chart illustrates, there is a predictable seasonal increase in searches for "motorcycles for sale". This year, searches are higher than ever, with more than double the volume of searches for "motorcycles for sale" last week than the same week last year.

Hitwise search data reveals that the increase is limited to generic searches. We have not seen a similar increase in branded searches with the keyword "motorcycles" such as "honda motorcycles" or "yamaha motorcycles. In fact, searches for the top motorcycle manufacturers have decreased. Looking at search term variations for "motorcycles", we found that last week, the generic "motorcycles for sale" query topped the list for the first time

Typically, brands such as Honda, Yamaha, and Suzuki top the list. This marks the first week since 2006 that the generic term "motorcycles for sale" tops the list.

One possible reason for this increase is that consumers are researching purchases more thoroughly thus increasing searches. Hitwise data suggests this is the case but also indicates that consumers are opting for second hand bikes.

We recently published a report on the classifieds industry and looking at other Classifieds verticals we see a similar pattern, with consumers actively researching purchase decisions and investing time in comparing prices and offers. The report (which you can request here) also shows opportunities in search marketing for customer acquisition. The report illustrates that Classifieds providers tend to rely on organic search traffic more heavily than average for the retail category. The same is true for "motorcycles for sale". 92% of clicks for searches for "motorcycles for sale" were on organic listings. CycleTrader.com received 50% of traffic from searches for "motorcycles for sale", 100% of which was organic.

In the meantime, if you have an old motorcycle that you need to unload, now is the time!

Classifieds Traffic Soars in Recession

2009-04-02T12:54:11Z

Last week we published a report on the Classifieds industry. Yesterday we issued a news release with some of the findings and I wanted to share some those findings here as well. Classifieds is one of the fastest growing industries with visits up 84% year over year in February 09. The following chart illustrates that the growth is steady and constant over the past three years:

The growth is fuelled by growth in visits to Craigslist and localization of existing classifieds.

To better understand the category's growth, we created two custom categories, Craigslist Cities, which includes over 300 local versions of Craigslist, and All Other Classifieds. The following chart plots market share of visits to these two categories over the past year. (Note that visits are plotted on two different axes to allow for comparison between the much larger Craigslist Cities category and the smaller All Other Classifieds).

Market share of US Internet Visits increased 90% to the Craigslist Cities custom category year over
year in February 2009 while visits to All Other Classifieds grew 22%.Visits to All Other Classifieds had been declining for most of 2008 with visits starting to increase in January and February. This suggests that the worsening US economy may be boosting visits to classifieds websites, and contributing to the recent up tick in visits to both Craigslist Cities and All Other Classifieds.

In terms of what is fuelling the growth for Craigslist, it appears to be new localized versions and an increase in visits from income groups. Craigslist tends to attract wealthier households but the site's growth is coming from lower income groups: This suggests that Craigslist may become less of a destination site for wealthy people and more of a necessity for lower income groups as the economy continues to sour.

The report also dives into acquisition opportunities from search and studies the auto, real estate and employment classifieds verticals more closely. You can request a complimentary copy of the report here.